Throughout this semester I was able to use this portfolio to upload my works and look back at them to be able to make improvements on my next.  You’ll be able to see the improvements I’ve made throughout the months when it came to creating the first and final drafts for my essays. My portfolio also shows the areas that I didn’t work on that often and might not have improved in as much. 

I feel like over time Improved in being able to really understand the passages I was reading and be able to find the main theme in variety of genres. This was my first time I was reading stories and having to be able to look more deeply into them to be able to really understand the message the author was trying to convey. In the beginning of the class, I would read stories but not think deeply into them and understand them to be able to explain them in depth to somebody else who may have not read it. Throughout the semester I improved in being able to analyze the text I was reading and understand symbols throughout stories that the author put in for the reader to catch. I developed different strategies from this class to be able to make my writing and reading abilities better. For example, I was able to use first drafts throughout this class to improve my writing in essays. Being able to create a first draft and looking back at it to see where you can improve your work is a new strategy I’d like to implement in the rest of my writing. Getting edits back from my teachers would help me be able to know exactly what parts of the essay I would need to work on. Without edits first drafts helped me look back at my essays to see how I could organize my points, evidence and paragraphs to make it clearer for the readers. Especially in my 2^nd argumentative essay that we wrote in class, the edits given to me I feel like helped me a lot in being able to understand and see where I can improve on my first draft. The stories I read throughout this class were completely new to me, so I developed strategies to be able to understand the reading and the vocabulary more by taking notes on parts that confused me. Being able to use rhetorical terms and strategies in my writing was something I found more challenging because of this I don’t feel like I have improved much or at all at using them. The edits and notes left on my first draft were able to help me a lot, but I feel like the peer review we would do in class also helped me. I was able to learn a lot from other students who gave me tips, or I was able to use their essays to give me new ideas or strategies to implement in my own writing. With the last paper we had to find an article to implement into our essay. Even though we only did this once I found it easy because we were introduced to the Cuny library. It’s easy to navigate and you can find any work that you need quickly. They have thousands of reliable sources on the topics you need so I found that helpful and plan on using it for future classes. Figuring out how to write a good argumentative essay was difficult in the beginning because I was so used to writing essays since high school. I feel like the difference between writing in college and high school is how depth you must go for your writing. You can see from my first essay to my last how I was able to improve on making deeper thesis statements and points with evidence. Before this semester I was really writing essays with black and white arguments or points. A problem I had was being able to remember to cite correctly and making a citation page. In my paper I forgot to make a citation page. I don’t remember how to make citations in the text and a citation page correctly without having to look back and making sure.